1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to changing colors of objects. More specifically, this invention relates to changing color combinations of text and background objects to enhance the color contrast of these objects.
2. Background Art
Computers in the home have been a boon to many people, as computers allow their owners to write letters, store recipes, calculate finances, keep a checkbook, and communicate with other computer users. Computers in the workplace not only allow the previously mentioned benefits, but also allow almost instant collaboration between workers, fast file and data transfers, and real-time video conferencing.
While the use of computers has brought great benefits to many people, there are still some problems associated with computer use for particular people. In particular, some people have a hard time discerning text when the text is on a colored background. This problem is exacerbated when the text, in addition to the colored background, is a non-standard color. For many applications, any person who cannot determine text on a particular background may simply change the combination of colors for the text and the background.
However, with today""s instantaneous collaboration, the color contrast between text and its background is becoming more problematic. Many products, such as workgroup collaboration programs (sometimes called xe2x80x9cgroupwarexe2x80x9d) and browser environments, allow the designer to select the color combination of the background and the text. In this system, a designer might select, for instance, black text with red italics on a yellow background. This color combination may make it hard for those who are visually impaired or color blind to read the message. As another example, a designer might choose yellow text on a background image of leaves that has quite a bit of black and green in it. Even people without any visual impairment may have a hard time reading this text.
These color contrast problems are particularly egregious for web browsers viewing web pages from the internet. Because the internet is essentially a very large network of discrete computers, web page programmers are free to choose any background and text color combination that they desire. There are no xe2x80x9cstandardxe2x80x9d background and text combinations on the internet. Additionally, multicolored backgrounds or background images are becoming increasingly popular. Background images, in particular, can make the overlying text very hard to read, as the image can contain areas of color that distract the eyes from the text, collide with the text, or blend with the text. Some internet users, particularly those with visual impairments, have a hard time discerning text from the staggering number of web pages that have some type of color contrast problem for these users.
For users who experience problems with reading text on certain web pages, or who have troubles reading messages sent using collaboration or groupware tools, there are some options. Some collaboration tools and internet browsers allow the user to override the current background and/or text color. Additionally, some browsers will simply replace all backgrounds and text colors to the user""s preferences by using a style sheet. These settings allow a user to adapt the wide variety of web page color combinations to something more suitable for the user.
These solutions have their limitations, however. If only the text is changed to the user""s preferences, then the text might be changed from yellow to black, for instance, when the current background is black. This change would make the text unreadable. Similarly, if all backgrounds are changed to a user preference of white, then the color combination of yellow text on what was previously a black background would now become the combination of yellow text on a white background. If all color combinations are changed to a user preference color combination, then other anomalies can arise. For example, some web pages have frames where the only demarcation that separates the frames are differences in color between the frames. Replacing each of these frame background colors with a user preference color eliminates the demarcations between frames.
The xe2x80x9cstyle sheetxe2x80x9d solution is also a limited solution to color contrast problems because many web pages do not contain style sheets. By having a user select his or her own style sheet, the browser can then use this style sheet to replace the style sheets of web pages. Because few web pages use style sheets, the browser primarily changes the text and background color combination. This change in color combination has its own detriments, as discussed above.
Finally, these solutions tend to eviscerate any creative flair placed into the web page by the web page designer, as these solutions simply replace the web page""s color combinations with the user""s sole color combination.
Without a method and apparatus for automatically improving color contrast between text and backgrounds, many users of computer systems will be frustrated in their attempts to read text in certain text and background color combinations, and will continue to experience text and/or background color changes that may actually make the text less readable or that make all text and background color combinations the same.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention provide a color contrast adjuster that automatically selects and applies a new color combination for text and background based on the current color combination for the text and background, if the current color combination is a problem color combination. The text can be any text object (such as a hypertext link, bold text, underline text, groups of text etc.) and the background can be any background object whose color can be determined (such as a solid color, a button, a global interchange format file, etc.). Additionally, the color contrast adjuster can store multiple problem and preferred color combinations for each user. The color contrast adjuster can replace a problem color combination with a preferred color combination. Furthermore, the color contrast adjuster can provide example color combinations to a user, allow the user to select a better color combination, and add this preferred and problem combination to a user preferences. This allows the color contrast adjuster to adapt to additional problem color combinations. The color contrast adjuster can also provide the user with an indication of previous colors for objects whose color has been changed. This option is useful if the user is to select an object based on the color of the object.
Because the color contrast adjuster preferably changes color combinations on a background-by-background basis instead of changing all backgrounds to one color, there should be less interference with the layout of web pages or other documents. Additionally, the color contrast adjuster""s use of a user preferences gives a user more control over the layout of web pages or other documents. This allows the user to minimize the effect of the color contrast adjuster to the extent that the user wishes to control this effect.
The foregoing and other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of the various preferred embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.